Jones v. Above The Law [1]

In October 2009, Donald Marvin Jones [2], a law professor at the University of Miami School of Law, sued David Lat and David Minkin, editor and publisher of the popular law gossip blog Above the Law (ATL) [3], as well as ATL's parent company, Dead Horse Media. The complaint seeks $22 million in damages and an injunction "enjoining Abovethelaw to remove all articles and posts concerning Professor Jones."

The lawsuit revolves around a series [4] of [5] posts [6] ATL published after Jones was arrested in 2007 on suspicion of trying to solicit sex from a prostitute. In these posts, ATL made fun of Jones—calling him "The Nutty Professor"—and posted a screenshot of the "incident report" [5] for his arrest.  In one post [7], Lat published a photo/graphic mash-up collage forwarded to him by a reader that—according to the complaint—"depict[ed] Professor Jones as a drug dealer and a pimp or both."  The graphic featured one photograph of Jones superimposed on a $20 bill and another talking up a group of prostitutes. 

According to the National Law Journal [8], Jones pleaded not guilty to the solicitation charge, and the authorities later dismissed the charge and expunged it from Jones' record.

Jones' complaint alleges that ATL infringed his copyright by publishing the mash-up collage because a photo in it was "stolen from the UM website without permission." There is no allegation that Jones, as opposed to the University, owns the copyright in the photo or that the photo is registered with the copyright office. Jones also alleges that publication of the collage casts him in a false light by portraying him as a "dope dealer, pimp, and criminal."

Finally, the complaint alleges that ATL invaded his privacy and cast him in a false light by publishing the "incident report" despite dismissal and expungement of the solicitation charges.  Jones' claim that ATL made "private records public" is complicated by Fla. Stat. § 119.105 [9], which provides that "[p]olice reports are public records except as otherwise made exempt or confidential," and says that, even in the case of exempt or confidential police reports, "[t]his section does not prohibit the publication of such information to the general public by any news media legally entitled to possess that information."